"Cardiac physiology all the way! The specialism is in such dire shortage at the moment, both within the NHS and abroad (NZ, Aus etc...). Hospitals will snap you up and will invest in you in terms of post grad training and other benefits. I have colleageus who work term time only as an incentive to work within the NHS as opposed to industry. Departments tend to treat you better in order to retain you! Or at least this is what experience has shown me. As physiologists we work in a variety of healthcare settings from OP clinics and community work to cardiac cath lab and theatre work. There's even a growing number of physiologists responsible for the minor surgical implantation and programming of medical devices. I'm personally situated in a big tertiary hospital so we often work in more acute areas of care, the PCI lab is an example of this (treating heart attack patients). This setting really highlights the differences between physiologist and nurse. As physiologists we Monitor ECG and heamodynamics, actively feeding back info and guiding the decisions of the doctors. We can provide temporary pacing and specialist diagnostic services, such as intravascular ultrasound, as well as selecting and logging medical equipments and drugs given to the patients. In contrast nurses can be found doing more of a scrub nurse role, opening and prepping equipment e.g. Stents and catheters, taking bloods to check clotting times and administering drugs. Nurses can have more engagement with the patient throughout the case where as we tend to mainly interact with patients when setting them up with monitoring equipment (ECG, BP, SP02 etc). Although this isnt always the case, In some hospital trusts physiologists will provide the bulk of that direct interaction. Within the field of cardiology, physiology also provides much quicker career progression than nursing. You can become an echocardiographer for example, allowing you to earn at a band 7 rate as well as also having opportunity do locum work (£45-50ph). However I'm not sure how this progression compares in terms of other nursing specialisms! Both careers provide equally vital roles, but I guess ultimately nurses provide more of an emotional/ 'pastoral style' Role than a physiologist would, we are more scientific by nature! hope this helps"